Hamas blesses shooting attack against rabbi, calls it ‘heroic’

From the Jerusalem Post Photograph from Times of Israel

Hamas praised a shooting attack near Nablus, in which 35-year-old Rabbi Raziel Shevach (left) was killed, calling it “heroic.” Shevach, who was a resident of the Havat Gilad outpost in the West Bank, came under fire on Tuesday evening while driving his car on Route 60, according to the IDF. He later died at a hospital in Kfar Saba.

“Hamas blesses the heroic Nablus operation that comes as a result of the Zionist occupation’s violations and crimes at the expense of our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem and al-Aksa Mosque,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in statement posted on the Islamist group’s official website on Tuesday. Barhoum added that the shooting attack is “an affirmation that our Palestinian people’s compass is Jerusalem and al-Aksa Mosque and that its choice is the resistance.”

Hamas’s armed wing, Izzadin Kassam, also spoke highly of the shooting attack. 
“The Nablus operation is the first practical response with fire to remind the enemy’s leaders and those who support them that what you fear is coming,” its spokesman Abu Obeida said, without clarifying.

It is not clear who planned and carried out the shooting attack.